{PicMonkey Tutorial} How To Design A Photo Card

One of the questions I am often asked is how about is how to make printables or how to add words to images. So, this tutorial is about how to use PicMonkey (a free photo editing website) to get a plain white background and turn it into a photo card.

1) Go to www.picmonkey.com and select Create A Collage.

2) A blank, fillable page will show up. You can change the size of the collage by placing your pointer between the image boxes and sliding them. Or you can change the dimensions at the bottom. For this tutorial, I left the dimensions as they were and just hit Save. I always save at the highest quality. I called the image Blank Canvas. After saving, click on the small white “x” in the upper right corner to go back to the PicMonkey homepage.

If you are going to be printing your photo card, you will want to make your image a higher resolution. Make the canvas size significantly bigger by making the numbers at the bottom bigger. Then, as before, save at the highest quality. This isn’t as important if you are just making images to post online.

3) This time chose Edit a Photo and open the Blank Canvas picture that was just saved.

4) Choose the Overlays option from the tool bar on the far left. Select Your Own from the top of second tool bar on the left. Find the picture on your computer that you want to make into a photo card and click Save.

5) The photo will show up on your Blank Canvas. Use the small circles at the edges of the image to adjust the size of the photo.

6) Grab the photo and move it to wherever you want it on the Blank Canvas. I moved my up and to the right. Next, use the Fade slider from the box on the right to make the image fade away some. Once you have the image where you want it, click the Merge Layers button from the toolbar at the top to get the image to stay put.

7) Now it is time to add text. Choose the “P” from the far left tool bar. Type your text in the text box (“We hope you have a”), choose the font you want (Bilbo Swish Caps) and click add. Grab the text box and move it to wherever you want it. I moved it down and to the left. Then, choose a font color from the box on the right.

8) Add your next line of text following the same steps as above.

9) For my 3rd line of text, I wanted the font size and color to be the same as the first line. So, right click on the “We hope you have a” text box and choose Duplicate Overlay and the same text box will appear again.

10) Change the text to whatever you want it to be. I changed mine from “We hope you have a” to “Fourth of July”. Since it is the same font size and color, I only have to position the text box where I want it to go (down and to the right).

11) This photo card needs to be cropped a bit so I chose the first option from the tool bar on the far left called Basic Edits. I chose crop and a crop grid showed up on my image. Use the small circles at the edges of the grid to adjust it to where you want it to be and then click Apply. Then, save the completed photo card!

12) Since a photo card without a border won’t show up very well on my blog page, I added a border. To do it, I chose the Frames option from the tool bar on the far left. I selected Photo Corners, picked silver corners, put a check mark in the Transparent Background box and clicked apply. Then, I saved the photo card.

There are an endless number of ways to customize a photo card by adding additional images, applying overlays, adding effect and stickers. The best way to figure out how to do it is to spend some time playing with the different options…there’s always the Undo button is you don’t like how it looks!

This is NOT a sponsored post. I was in no way compensated to write it. I just love the free photo editing programs and want to share.

Due to stolen content, I have found it necessary to only show a snippet of my blog posts in my feed. Thank you for understanding that I want to keep the content I work hard to create on my website where it is originally published: thegunnysack.com

Comments

Cassie Gant says:

June 22, 2012 at 5:22 pm

Definitely pinned this for later! Thanks for the tips, I am horrible at photo stuff but really want to learn. Seems like an easy way to start!

Sall's Country Life says:

June 22, 2012 at 5:25 pm

Thanks for the great tutorial. I was just monkeying around this morning, and was not pleased! You’ve made me want to go back and try harder!!

Jenny Yarbrough says:

June 22, 2012 at 7:38 pm

Very cute! I was using I picky while I waited for picmonkey to add a collage feature. Both are great tools!

Julie Ann says:

June 22, 2012 at 8:51 pm

Thanks for the tutorial!

Carol, The Answer Is Chocolate says:

June 22, 2012 at 11:05 pm

Oh thank you so much. I am totally hooked on PicMonkey and this tutorial is just going to make me spend more time there! Love it.

Carol, The Answer Is Chocolate says:

June 23, 2012 at 6:40 pm

Couldn’t wait to play after your tutorial so I made a new craft themed printable.

1CardCreator says:

June 24, 2012 at 12:20 am

Thanks for the step by step! I will Pin it so I can find it when I need it! Thanks for sharing.

laura@imnotatrophywife.com says:

June 24, 2012 at 3:34 am

love this! thanks for posting
laura@imnotatrophywife.com

Di from Life is Di-licious says:

June 25, 2012 at 5:19 am

Great Tutorial. I’d heard of PicMonkey but hadn’t got around to checking it out. I’ll definitely be downloading it now! So simple

Michelle Paige says:

June 27, 2012 at 10:54 pm

I always love your tutorials! This one is brilliant! Thank you! Have you ever had these printed out as photos via Costco? I’ve tried before, but never could figure out the right dimensions to get a perfect 4×6 size. They always come back wrong.